Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District
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Proponents of free Internet make progress
Net neutrality slated for consideration on House floor
8 June 2006
An Internet-freedom amendment offered by U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) will be considered in the House as part of comprehensive telecommunications-reform legislation.
Late last night, the House Rules Committee agreed to allow consideration of the measure, which would ban phone and cable companies from charging Web sites for faster data transmission, or blocking their online competitors' content and services. Today, the full House also is expected to allow consideration of the Net-neutrality provision and other amendments when it sets parameters for debating the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006, H.R. 5252. The House likely will vote on the COPE Act and its amendments this Friday, or early next week at the latest.
"All bits are created equal," said Inslee, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who sponsored a similar Net-neutrality amendment when the COPE Act was considered by that panel at the subcommittee and full committee levels. "Protecting the open architecture of the Internet should be part of any update to our nation's telecom laws."
The measure was rejected on April 5 by an 8-23 margin in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee. On April 26, it gained support in the full committee, but still was defeated by a vote of 22-34.
If the Net-neutrality amendment fails on the House floor, the issue could be taken up in a free-standing bill, such as the Network Neutrality Act of 2006, H.R. 5273, which was introduced in the House by Inslee, Markey, Eshoo and Boucher in early May.